MovieChat Forums > The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023) Discussion > The Final Film of William Friedkin

The Final Film of William Friedkin

posted 7 months ago by roger1 (2493)
9 replies | jump to latest

A few nights ago, I watched "the final film of director William Freidkin." He died this year, at the ripe age of 87(which is actually starting to look too young with all the 90 something artists out there, and a few 100-year olds.)

Freidkin got a lot of warm personal write-ups on his passing -- including right here at Moviechat -- and I found myself having to confront the fact that "way back then" when he hit so big -- The French Connection of 1971 and The Exorcist of 1973 -- I was (a) not much impressed with his movies and (b) rather contemptuous of him personally(this took YEARS of reading interviews with him and books about him that put him in an unfavorable light.: raging temper, massive ego, badly treated people, etc.)

Well, I"ve mellowed on the man, I can honestly say that all these tributes to him , combined with his willingness to go on DVD documentaries and say all sorts of great things about Hitchcock(versus Tarantino bashing Hitch every chance he gets)....hey...it all seems different now about William Freidkin. Nice guy, after all(?) And I"ve been looking at The French Connection and The Exorcist(all over streaming right now) and...they are nostalgic to me. Movies from a different era, now looking better to me than they did then(The Exorcist has risen higher in my estimation that French Connection, though.)

I also know that Sorcerer (which I saw on release) has its fans, and I want to see it again.

And I stand by "To Live and Die in LA" as my favorite Friedkin film -- it is so absolutely tres "80s" -- 1985 to be more exact(midpoint in that sheeny-shiny decade of movies) with a title song that is IT for that decade(it got a lot of play on MTV with a flashy video featuring Friedkin in the control booth.) Also it is as LA as The French Connection is NYC.

So Friedkin died with a movie yet to be released -- think Kubrick with Eyes Wide Shut. Hitchcock died four years(pretty much to the MONTH -- April) after his final film(Family Plot of 1976.)

Slight downside for Friedkin. His final movie is not getting(to my mind) a theatrical release. It is on Showtime(cable) and Paramount Plus(streaming) in America. Friedkin's wife Sherry Lansing once ran Paramount -- I wonder if she helped get him this final gig.

It is "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial," an item four times removed from the source:

First, a NOVEL (big best seller of the 50s) by Herman Wouk.
Second, a MOVIE -- bit hit of 1954 with Bogart as Captain Queeg and some other male stars around him.
Third -- THIS stage play(which did Broadway and tours for years.)
Fourth: a 1988 broadcast version by Robert Altman (which I never saw)

And now - how the time flies -- a 2023 version in which the WWII storyline of the originals(except maybe the 1988?) has been updated for the Middle East forever wars.

Since its a "TV movie of a play," Friedkin was given 15 days to finish it(he did it in 14) and a "back up director" for insurance purposes(the warm and supportive Guillermo del Toro took that gig.)

Hey...its pretty good. But here's the thing: A lot of reviews seemed to think it "demonstrated Freidkin's sensiblities" and carried forth some of his themes as if it were a proper part of his canon but I was thinking: I can't see ANYONE's directorial personality in this piece. What I saw was crisp and tightly directed, well acted(VERY well acted in some cases) and...a bit sparse and "less than" the movie or the novel.

I think that's what surprised me the most. "The Caine Mutiny" came out in 1954 -- no I wasn't around to see it, hah -- but played TV in the 60s in Los Angeles(on the Saturday Late Night "Fabulous 52" series on local CBS opposite which Psycho played a time or two on local ABC) and it was well known in my military-family and I ended up reading the novel and seeing the movie on TV in the 70's. I'm familiar with both and they are simply BIGGER and more detailed in all parts AROUND the trial.

The main story centered around "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" play is that James Garner worked in the Broadway version playing a juror -- saying nothing for the weeks on end of the play but watching Henry Fonda play the defense attorney for the mutineers and Lloyd Nolan play the infamous Captain Queeg. Many an article and Garner book told that tale -- and how Garner studied Fonda, NOlan and the other actors on stage to learn HIS trade. (Worked, I'd say.)

But I always wondered -- "The Caine Mutiny" -- book and movie -- goes on for about an hour at sea (including the big typhoon during which the mutiny occurs) -- how could a play about the trial capture THAT?

Well, it does and it doesnt. All the witnesses and lawyers TELL us about all these incidents, and it is our job as an audience to conjure them in our mind.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 months ago

Big problem for me: There's a pretty famous scene in novel and movie -- after the trial has concluded -- in which the quiet and eccentric defense attorney(Jose Ferrer -- a recent Best Actor winner -- in the movie; Fonda on Broadway) attends an event and exposes the REAL villain of the piece (it aint Queeg) and "verbally does him in."

It was a great scene to read(I was surprised at the villainy of the character; it had been hiding in plain sight) and a great scene in the movie(dare I say that Fred MacMurray added THIS cad to the villains he played in Double Indemnity and The Apartment) and...not all that much here in Friedkin's film.

Why? Because we simply had not seen enough of this villainous character IN ACTION , doing all the things he does BEFORE the trial in book and movie to lay the groundwork for the reveal of his villainy. In The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, we barely KNOW this man --much younger in this version than in others (and played by Bill Pullman's lookalike son_ and the insults rained upon him simply don't hit hard enough.

However -- Friedkin makes sure that the very last SHOT of his movie -- which hails from the book, but not right at the end -- comes as big walloping shocking surprise and his credit DIRECTED BY WILLIAM FRIEDKIN leaps on the screen right after it. Its like Friedkin just slaps us in the face and says goodbye, Charlie -- you're on your own.

So my analysis must shift elsewhere. For his final "movie" (sort of), William Friedkin (still at age 87, I believe) turned in a professional, competant, fast-paced piece of work -- duly refuting Tarantino's belief that the final films of old directors are lacking(boy, must he regret that statement now -- it might have fit Hitchcock, Hawks, Ford, and Wilder, but it does NOT fit Scorsese, Scott and at the end, Friedkin.)

And yet: a sleight bit of work, too.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 months ago

Indeed, I remembered back pretty quickly to a Showtime/Paramount TV movie of 1997 that was ALSO directed by Friedkin and that ALSO came from a famous play and movie (but not in that order, this one was a movie first and then travelled as a play.)

12 Angry Men.

The famous Sidney Lumet movie of 1957 pitted Henry Fonda -- as a juror, not an attorney -- against Lee J. Cobb and it was a master class in "quiet liberal versus roaring conservative" (before those terms were rendered rather ridiculous in modern times. Fonda was the billed star, Cobb became his equal and the other jurors including a famous bunch of character guys ready to shine : Jack Warden, Jack Klugman, Ed Begley, EG Marshall...and a fellah named Martin Balsam who became..Arbogast.

The Friedkin movie of 1997 put in Jack Lemmon for Fonda and George C. Scott for Cobb and my take on those two in these roles was easy: they would have been great if the movie had been made 20 years earlier, but now both Lemmon and Scott were too old and tired-looking for the parts (12 Angry Men became Two Old Tired Men.) Friedkin updated by putting some African American men(but no women) on this jury, but they didn't quite fit their roles. And you could find an up and comer named James Gandolfini(2 years from Tony Soprano) in the Ed Binns role.

Its sort of weird to think that Friedkin's 12 Angry Men and his Caine Mutiny Court Martial were made 25 years apart but LOOK like they could have been filmed the same year. I guess cable TV filmmaking hasn't much changed in the 21st Century.

And, unfortunately both films pale against their more famous "movie movie" predecessors.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 months ago

To the actors: Kiefer Sutherland has the Queeg part, and its as great as it always was, and the actor's meal it always was. Funny how, in his older age, Kiefer has pretty much lost all vestiges of his father Donald' more angular and somewhat more handsome face -- Kiefer's his own man, now, quite middle aged here, with a great, gruff and grumpy voice to go all the way in Queeg --and, as Bogart did, to find the pathos and good qualities of the man, as well.

Funny: you reach that point in time where a young actor's face looks familiar, but I had to look them up to "place them" from where else I saw them.

Two examples: Maryk, the nice guy goaded into mutiny was played by Van Johnson in the movie. Here he is played by Jake Lacy. I looked him up. He played a very obnoxious VILLAIN of a rich husband in the first "White Lotus"(the one in Hawaii) and it was jarring to find myself being sympathetic to him here. But I was. A good actor, I guess. I sure hated him on The White Lotus.

Keefer, the ambiguous villain played ambiguously by Fred MacMurray in the original(good guy? Not?) is here played by the much younger than MacMurray Lewis Pullman. Yep, he looks just like his dad and I recognized him from the OK "Bad Night at the El Royale" where he played a nervous bellhop with a bad case of the heebie-jeebies. In a reverse of Jake Lacy, Pullman was sympathetic THERE, not so HERE.

The judge overseeing the emotional fireworks of the trial was played by Lance Reddick, who sadly joined Friedkin in passing away before the release of this movie. This TV movie is now seen as " a fine way for William Friedkin and Lance Reddick to leave us," and it is -- perhaps even more for Reddick(the unflappable hotel manager of "John Wick") than for Friedkin for Reddick gets to "run the show" of this trial movie and we look to him as the brains of the operation, the voice of Reason, "God himself."

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 months ago

The very important role of the eccentric and mysterious defense lawyer(Ferrer in the movie, Fonda on stage) goes to one Jason Clarke, a big man with a wide, somewhat scary face. I recall Clarke from way back in "White House Down" where he played the evil mercenary henchman taking over the White House, killing hostages...threatening to kill a little girl. He had one of those scary faces that suggests a real-life villainy, like he'd look good in prison.

But this: Clarke is a "good guy lawyer" in Caine Mutiny, but just last summer he was a "bad guy lawyer" out to get Oppenheimer's security clearance in Oppenheimer. With that face, he made more sense as a villain, but here he uses that face to surprise us...hey, he's a good guy after all. (In fact, consider: Jason Clarke, Jake Lacy, and Lewis Pullman here all play opposite to the characters they played in Oppenheimer, The White Lotus, and Bad Times at the El Royale.)

Friedkin couldn't get a woman onto the jury of 12 Angry Men, but he gets several into The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. African-American Monica Raymond plays the prosecutor(played by EG Marshall in The Caine Mutiny, who was ALSO the most calm and analytical of the 12 Angry Men -- THERE's some movie trivia.) An Asian-American woman plays a Naval psychiatrist grilled on the stand. The other women are basically "bits" -- the court stenographer, a juror(who looks a lot like Sherry Lansing, but isn't.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 months ago

A final shift: considering the final films of three famous filmmakers:

William Friedkin's The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. A bit of a downer that this didn't get theatrical release -- this makes Friedkin's final film the violent indie Killer Joe(with the creepy indie Bug not long before that.) Indies are where Friedkin got stuck after his wife Sherry Lansing left Paramount. While she was there, Friedkin landed "real movies" like Jade, Rules of Engagement, The Hunted -- not really among his best or most famous. Just work.

Still the verdict: "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" in no way betrays an 87-year old filmaker. It is crisp, quick and professional -- perhaps an ode as much to Friedkin's technical crew and THEIR skills?

Versus: Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot. Hitchcock was 75 when he made Family Plot -- 12 years younger than Friedkin when he made Caine Mutiny. But Hitchcock was born in 1899, subject to the medicine, surgery and health regimens(in his case, none) of the time. 75 was older then. Still, you can FEEL the "old man" in Family Plot: overlong scenes, too much expository dialogue(by Ernest Lehman,but Hitchcock should have cut it down) too many simple medium shot scenes.

Tough call: Hitchcock's Frenzy of 4 years earlier -- made when Hitchcock was 71 -- IS just as crisp and quick and professional as The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. One wishes that Hitchcock had gone out, for sheer professionalism, with Frenzy, but it seems he needed (and WE needed) the "nicer" warmer fond farewell of Family Plot.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 months ago

I've always made this comparision: the opening scene of Frenzy -- the political speech on the Thames -- looks and sounds just about perfect. Gil Taylor's cinematography on real location is crystalline, the dialogue includes an elegant(if stuffy) political speech and the shots are quick and crisp all around the scene(including glimpses of Hitchcock in a bowler hat.) Versus: Family Plot: some beautiful cinematography -- mainly reds -- by Leonard South -- of the room in which Madame Blanche does a seance and an interview with Juulia Rainbird --is marred by a WAY overlong dialogue sequence, followed in turn by a process cab ride with Madame Blanche and her boyfriend Lumley(Blanche is Barbara Harris; Lumley is Bruce Dern) that I call "the screen that ate Bruce Dern's head." Just horrible.

And yet -- and versus The Caine Mutiny Court Martial -- Family Plot, flaws and all, is very, very much a "Hitchcock joint," getting better as it goes along, coming together splendidly and featuring all sorts of "Hitchcock idea shots" which were his rather playful preogative -- HIS deal. The Caine Mutiny Court Martial by comparison looks like ANYBODY could have made it.

In any event, Caine Mutiny Court Martial looks professional and well-timed where the more "personal" Family Plot does not and therefore I suppose Hitchocck's work is more indicative of QT's caution than Friedkin's is. But Frenzy is fine so Hitchocck didn't collapse really until the very end. (And let me tell you: I've found a few retrospective reviews of Family Plot as a small masterpiece, one of Hitchcock's best so -- maybe I'm wrong.)

One more: Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut," made I guess when he was 68, 69 and maybe 70 -- younger than Hitchcock when he made Family Plot a LOT younger than William Friedkin when he made Caine Mutiny.

And Kubrick died AT 70. 10 years younger than Hitchcock at his death. 17 years younger than Friedkin at his. A mere pup, Kubrick was (heart attack evidently.) CONT

[–] DrRed (522) 7 months ago

I agree. I remember the scene where the lawyer denounces the “real author” of the Caine Mutiny and throws a drink in his face. I was disappointed by what we got here

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 months ago

I am running a longer "multi-post" here (as i am wont to do around here) but yeah, you've nailed the scene that doesn't work in this new version for me -- and yet I like how Friedkin cuts away to his own credit right as the drink hits.

In both the book and the movie, there is more: the "hero" lawyer(Lt. Greenwald, which meant plenty in the Nazi era of WWII, but perhaps more her in the post 9/11 world) says to Keefer after the drink hits: "If you wanna go outside for a fight, we can. I drunk enough you maybe can beat me" -- or something like that. Condescending.

Nonetheless we don't get that here, we don't know so much about Keefer -- it just sort of underperforms and the drink throw is less understandable.

(Now back to finishing my multi-post. Almost done.)

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 months ago

There were a couple of issues with Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut:

ONE: Did he rdie before he could turn in a "real final cut." Was the film "unfinished"? (We are told it WAS finished.

TWO: Was this movie as great as his other classics (nope) or at least a great film unto itself(maybe?)

In short, Family Plot clearly evidenced an older, imparied director at the helm; The Caine Mutiny Court Martial gives away not at all the age of its director but "Eyes Wide Shut" seems somewhere in between, as if Kubrick didn't really concentrate on this one, lost his grip even with Tom Cruise as his star(perhaps BECAUSE of Tom Cruise as his star) and Nicole Kidman's sexuality along for the ride.

In short, Eyes Wide Shut looks and plays better than Family Plot, but may not be at the level of Kubrick's greatest work -- even as both Family Plot and Eyes Wide Shut are more MEANINGFUL than a rehash of the Caine Mutiny.

And oh: Eyes Wide Shut had that big ol's scary orgy scene in the middle. Whether great or camp, is still debated. I will say that Kubrick had a great eye for female nude bodies that were all shaped exactly the same, perfect way.

I'd say that Tarantino's argument still holds for "old time directors." Hawks' Rio Lobo and Wilder's Buddy Buddy are final films and not good ones. Hitchcock's Family Plot has its charms but reveals age-based flaws.

On the other hand, evidently Kubrick and Friedkin(now both dead) and Scorsese and Ridley Scott(both alive with major movies this year) are of an entirely different generation of health in old age -- with perhaps very professional craftspeople on hand to make their movies look all the better.

The Caine Mutiny Court Martial was a good watch, a fond farewell to Friedkin AND to Lance Riddick, competant but -- nothing special.